


You've got your peace now (but what about me?)

by Elisexyz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s02e19 The Dirty Half Dozen, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 07:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13899714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Jemma is well aware that Grant was lost on her long before she failed to revive him. It doesn’t hurt any less.





	You've got your peace now (but what about me?)

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like some Kara/Jemma interaction *shrugs* Also I _swear_ that I love Ward lots. Getting him always shot/stabbed/killed is just my twisted way of showing affection. ~~Someday I should just put him in a fluffy fic with a puppy or something.~~  
>  You can find me on Tumblr as [heytheredeann](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com).

Jemma is more than a little bit surprised that Kara is still at the base. Judging by how sickeningly attached to her partner she had seemed, and taking into account all that she’s been through and that she doesn’t have any other true connection in the world— Really, Jemma was expecting her to make much more of a mess and to run as far away from them as possible, or at least attempt to.

She’s spent the whole flight back to the base trying to keep her mind busy, away from the blood on her clothes and under her nails, away from the _sight_ of—

The furthest that her mind allowed her to wander was to estimate what Kara’s reaction would be. She didn’t have many interactions with her, but she seemed like a sweet, unfortunate woman, and she’d felt a weird sense of kinship considering that she was prey of the same trap that she’d fallen into once upon a time – that feeling was in sharp contrast with the unpleasant twist of her stomach at the sight of the newly-formed couple, but she wasn’t going to read that as anything other than disgust and loathing for the man that she used to call her husband.

Jemma found herself imagining Kara crying and screaming, attempting to attack Coulson, yelling empty threats on the wave of grief— it’s only hours later, with Kara’s horrified screams still echoing in her ears, that it occurs to her that maybe what she was doing was projecting the feelings that she wasn’t allowed to express onto the one person who _could_.

After all, who would question poor, misguided Kara crying over the dead traitor? Jemma saw the pitying looks directed towards her, no one was surprised or concerned by her reaction. But Jemma, on the other hand, had no reason nor right to cry over him. She’s worked hard under Coulson’s heavy gaze to prove that she’s not a _liability_ because of the ring that she used to wear, that she won’t turn her back on SHIELD just because one of the most important people in her life did— she won’t slip up now.

Grant was lost to her long before she failed to revive him.

Kara is sitting on the couch, surrounded by bottles of alcohol, some empty, some still full. She looks like a movie cliché, if not for the swollen eyes and face distorted by desperation: people in movies oftentimes manage to look _pretty_ even while they cry, but there’s nothing attractive about the scene playing before her.

Jemma’s eyes sting too as she walks closer. “Care if I join?” she asks.

She isn’t sure if company really is what she needs: during the day, she grew to dread everybody’s presence, because everything seemed so awfully _normal_ , everyone was so busy with everything going on that life carried on as if nothing happened. Nobody offered condolences, and Jemma isn’t sure if that’s for better or for worse. Maybe them downright treating her like a widow – is she? Does she qualify if her marriage never officially ended but her husband turned on them all? – would have been better than everybody avoiding the subject like the plague, or like they just couldn’t care less about bringing it up.

Kara, though— she may be the only one whose feelings are close to hers.

Kara shrugs, sniffing before taking another sip of whatever that stuff is – Grant used to self-medicate with alcohol, sometimes, but you wouldn’t have guessed how bad it was just by looking at him; Kara, on the other hand, either is not as skilled in the art of concealing her emotions or doesn’t care about trying.

Jemma moves to take a seat on one of the armchairs next to the couch. She eyes the two agents looming a couple of feet away from them.

“Can you step outside, please?” she asks, feeling a wave of overwhelming irritation because they won’t even let Kara _grieve_ in peace. She’s a crying mess, she’s probably more of a threat to herself than to anyone else, but Jemma highly doubts that this is what the agents are concerned about. What _Coulson_ is concerned about.

Kara deserves a bit of privacy as she grieves, for God’s sake.

“We have orders to keep watch, Agent Simmons,” one of the agents replies. Jemma thinks that she heard his name at some point, but she doesn’t bother looking for the information in her memory.

“You can keep watch from outside the room,” she snaps, trying to sound resolute even if she’d just like to _rest_. She feels so incredibly tired, yet when she tried to get some sleep she found herself too awake, too busy revising images that she’s sure she isn’t going to forget any time soon.

The two agents share a look, weighting her request.

“I’ll keep an eye on her, if that makes you feel better,” Jemma adds.

In the end, she’s assured that they’ll be outside, ready to storm in, and she’s left alone with her dead ex-husband’s girlfriend. She would really like to catch a break sometime in the near future.

She grabs a bottle of what turns out to be Scotch without asking, and Kara doesn’t comment on it. They just sit in silence for what feels like an eternity, and Jemma keeps hearing her cries and seeing Grant’s body and Coulson’s apologetic expression and when she looks down there’s still blood underneath her fingernails, even after she took a shower and tried to scratch it all off. Is it ever going away?

“Did you see it?” Kara suddenly asks, making Jemma’s head snap up in surprise.

“What?” she lets out, her voice coming out thin.

“How he died,” Kara elaborates, and it’s unsettling how easily and matter-of-factly she manages to say it. Jemma isn’t sure that she could make herself actually say the words, and _she_ has mixed feelings towards Grant, while for Kara it was all love and no betrayal.

“Two gunshot wounds to the chest,” she explains, and it comes out flat, probably because she’s trying to picture all the theoretical studies she did on human anatomy instead of the actual _body_ that she held into her hands. “They cut right through his vest.”

“I meant— did you _see_ it?” Kara insists. “Were you _there_?”

Jemma swallows. “He was already on the ground when I arrived,” she explains. A little voice in the back of her head insists that if she had been _near_ , that if she hadn’t been childish and taken the first excuse to send him away from her, maybe she could have intervened readily enough to make a difference.

Kara snorts. “So just Coulson,” she comments. “Figures.”

“What are you insinuating?” Jemma immediately asks, way too defensively. If she was having this conversation with Grant, it would be all too easy for him to realize that the way in which she jumped at the comment is a clear indicator that she has had her own suspicions, despite herself. She actually has no trouble imagining his cocky grin as he realizes that she’s not blindly devoted to Coulson.

Kara, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be in any state to pay close attention to her tone or reactions.

“It’s not an accident, that’s what I’m saying,” she declares, glaring at Jemma as if to dare her to dispute her claim. “He _let_ him die.”

“Coulson wouldn’t,” Jemma replies, after a brief pause. Her voice comes out tiny and she feels _dirty_ , because she thought about that too, because when she came into the room Coulson was too busy scanning the perimeter to pay any mind to the man bleeding out on the floor— and while Jemma knows that clearing the room was necessary for their safety, she also knows that if that had been _anyone_ else offering help would have been top priority.

It wouldn’t have made a difference, she reminds herself, it was _bad_ — but she’s seen him survive so much that him dying because of two bullets feels like something that can only be blamed on human error. Coulson’s error. More precisely, Grant’s placement in Coulson’s list of priorities.

“He _did_ ,” Kara spits out, tears feeling her eyes. “Can’t be a _coincidence_ that only _he_ died.”

“Sometimes—” Jemma swallows. “Sometimes in the field you have to make difficult calls. Sometimes people— don’t come back.”

Grant being one of those people has been a nightmare of hers for a long time. She wonders if it would have been _worse_ to lose him then, when she had nothing but good memories to remember him by, or if it’s worse to be stuck in this place between grief and inadequacy, because she’s supposed to hate him.

“It’s not a coincidence,” Kara insists. “He always said you’re very smart, so you _must_ know it.”

The ‘he’ in question can only be Grant. Jemma plays nervously with her fingers, tracing the mark left by her ring, as she wonders what he said about her, what he _thought_ of her— if some of what he said he felt was ever true.

If asked, she would say that it doesn’t matter, because she harbours nothing but resentment for him. In the privacy of her head, fighting against tears that she’s not supposed to shed, she can admit that it _does_ matter, quite a lot. Is she mourning a complete lie? Is she mourning an half-truth? Is she mourning Grant as a whole, blood on his hands and everything?

Because she knew full well what he was when she saved his life in Vault D, and whereas that could be explained away as her following orders, she knows that she would have done it either way, that she wouldn’t have been _capable_ of standing by— as proven by how hard she fought to not let him slip away merely hours ago, except this time around she didn’t succeed.

“I don’t believe it,” Jemma says, but it lacks fire.

Kara scoffs. “SHIELD left me behind,” she points out. “I was loyal, I didn’t betray them— and they abandoned me. Grant is the only one that helped me. They cared so little for me, why would they protect a traitor?”

_Because it’s Coulson_ , Jemma wants to answer. _Coulson is good_.

Except she can still see him paying no mind to his supposed ally on the ground – he was clearing the room; it was the sensible thing to do –, except they’ve all blurred lines since when Hydra came out of the shadows, half of their friends turned out to be more traitors spying on them for another SHIELD, they’ve all done some things that she wouldn’t have _imagined_ — Jemma herself let another man be accused of betraying Hydra so that she wouldn’t be discovered as a mole. She can live with herself because it was an Hydra agent, far from an innocent man. And the same thing Coulson could say about Grant.

“Why are you still here?” Jemma asks, fighting the urge to throw up and cry at the same time.

“Closure,” Kara replies, in a heartbeat.

Jemma isn’t sure what it means, so she says nothing.

“He’ll pay, I promise you,” Kara adds, raising her eyes to meet hers. A shudder goes down Jemma’s spine as she realizes that _that_ is a threat to Coulson and that she’s deliberately deciding to write it off as a drunken woman’s senseless rant, because a part of her is stating: _I sure as hell hope he does_.


End file.
